Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Gray sky, yellow apples

At the moment I am in “waiting on the ice storm” mode. Ice storm is one of nature’s phenomenon that I would be happy to do without. Overnight, a fair amount of sleet fell, and perhaps a little snow, but the ice that is to come will be here sometime after dark today.

I have spent a good bit of my time over the past 24 hours trying to get ready for the storm. Specifically, I am readying the cabin to be without electricity for a while, since that seems to be the usual result of an ice storm. For me, readying for that event means I make sure I have plenty of water available for me and the critters. I prefer to draw water ahead of time rather than break into my sealed, emergency water.

The night before the storm I check my own food supplies and make sure I have enough food for the animals, too. I make sure the chickens are as far under the cabin as they can go and cover up the part of the pen that doesn’t fit. I charge up the cell phone. I fill up the car with gas, take a shower and wash my hair. Who knows how long it will be before power is restored if and when it goes out? In a storm as widespread as this one will be, power restoration to my cabin on the mountain is not going to be anyone’s highest priority.

So now all of that is accomplished, and it’s a matter of settling in and hoping for the best. At my feeders today, the action has been nonstop. I’ve seen more of everything than I knew visited my feeders. That pair of cardinals? It turns out there are three pairs of them, plus an extra female. The shy mourning dove? Four of them. And so on. I’ve given up trying to count juncos. There are too many of them and they are never all sitting still at the same time. It looks like a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds” on my back deck right now.

I can’t really see the sky anymore. It’s foggy here, or I am in the middle of a cloud. The forest grays out before I can see the sky or the mountain to the west or even my neighbor’s house. The icicles hang from the eaves, and the only color is the yellow of the apples at the bird feeder that were too far gone for me to eat.

For the moment, there’s no ice. I guess I’ll have to take that as a good thing.

Hopefully you don't lose power! I'm not really looking to losing power either.

I woke up to 4 inches of snow and now my head is telling me that second part of the storm is coming. Might get another 6 inches of snow along with the ice. Hopefully Phi will say that spring is coming earlier this year.

Elora: So far okay here, or at least no power outage. Lots of trees and branches are down though. I love my hi-speed internet and now also my new wireless router. Computing while in bed is hard to beat!

Woodwalker: As long as the extreme weather doesn't come inside the cabin, it can be interesting to observe. I'm glad I'm not out in ice when the branches and trees are coming down, though.

Cathy: Ice here this a.m. is as bad as I've ever had it. At least .25 thick and heading towards .5. So far I do have power, though. Yay!

Barbara: I didn't notice how nice the yellow apples looked with the little junco while I was taking the photo. It was only after I saw the result that I realized it was an interesting contrast!

About Me

I live in a cabin in the forests of Pennsylvania. I write about what I see and do in the natural world around me. I've been a hawkwatcher for more than 20 years, a birder for longer than that, and a crayfish-catcher since I was a polywog.